Large-scale search in Shelby: FBI, SBI and local law enforcement were on scene at a home

Local, state and federal law-enforcement agencies were conducting a large search on Wednesday in the Shelby area of Cleveland County. They wouldn’t yet say what it’s about.

Some neighbors said they believed the search related to the mysterious disappearance 24 years ago of a 9-year-old girl, Asha Degree.

“The Cleveland County Sheriff’s Office, the FBI, and the SBI are currently executing a court authorized search warrant at a property on Cherryville Road in Shelby,” read a statement from the agencies released by an FBI spokeswoman on Wednesday.

The search included an FBI evidence team and specially-trained police dogs, and was expected to last all day, the statement said.

Further information was not immediately released, and law enforcement was no longer at the home on Thursday.

Neighbor wonders if search relates to missing girl

Larry Hannah was one of dozens of people sitting in a parking lot across the street from a home on Cherryville Road where law enforcement had overtaken the front yard. The scene is close to Spake Farms.

When he heard about them arriving on Tuesday, he thought it might be a routine case or a drug house bust.

But his wife told him there was a rumor law enforcement may have found the remains of Asha Degree, who vanished one dark early morning outside her rural North Carolina home 24 years ago.

The FBI and her family have said they believed “someone in the area may hold the key that could unlock the case,” The Charlotte Observer reported in 2020 , when the FBI released an age-progressed photo of Asha, who went missing in Shelby on Feb. 14, 2000, when she was 9 years old. She was described as a spirited but shy 4th grader.

Her disappearance “remains an enduring mystery, even as police, the FBI, and her family continue to actively search for clues,” the FBI posted on its homepage in Februrary 2020 . The community has not forgotten

Hannah decided to see what was going on in person.

He watched Wednesday as law enforcement officers walked around the property and searched the surrounding woods with dogs. He said he doesn’t know the person who lived at the property, but he sometimes hunted nearby.

Asha has been on the mind of Cleveland County for over two decades, he said.

“Of course, we’re all anxious and nosy too, but it’s something that’s went on for a long, long time,” Hannah said. “We’re all eager to see it be closed.”

Jacqueline Degree was among the onlookers on Cherryville Road, her granddaughter on her hip.

Degree said she’s a cousin by marriage to Asha’s family, and saw her the morning of the day she disappeared.

It’s been hard for her and Asha’s family to see the rumors swirling on social media, she said, but after hearing how large the law enforcement presence was, she decided to stop and look Wednesday.

She said she hopes people will pray for the family and there will be some kind of closure in the end.

“My heart is with the family,” she said. “They’re beautiful people.”

Lance Allen said Asha Degree has never left his mind over the last two decades.

“I’m a father myself,” he said. “It’s heartbreaking.”

He said it was scary to see law enforcement searching a property he drives by regularly.

“She’s Shelby’s sweetheart,” Allen said. “It would bring us closure as well.”

Law enforcement haven’t stopped looking for Asha

The case remained open, the FBI said in 2020. A local detective was reviewing new and old leads, and FBI agents from the Charlotte field office were “consolidating and combing through case files for unexplored patterns or clues,” according to an agency update at the time.

Asha’s family last saw her around 2:30 a.m. on Feb. 14, 2000, when she was asleep in her bedroom , according to the FBI. About 90 minutes later, drivers on N.C. 18 in Shelby saw her walking on the side of the road.

Her parents reported Asha missing around 6:30 that morning, the FBI said.

“There was no sign of forced entry and no promising scent trail for search dogs to follow,” according to the FBI post. “That afternoon, investigators received at least two separate reports from individuals who said they saw a young female walking along Highway 18, in the opposite direction of the Degrees’ home, around 4 a.m.

“One person said they went back to check on the girl but she had left the roadway and disappeared into the woods.”

No one has seen Asha since, a Cleveland County Sheriff’s detective said in the 2020.

In 2001, her backpack was found buried along N.C. 18 in Burke County, with some belongings still inside, according to investigators.

In 2020, the FBI also re-released photos of a New Kids on the Block concert T-shirt and a “McElligot’s Pool by Dr. Seuss” book that were found in the backpack. The book had been checked out of her school library, FBI officials said.